Hi everyone,
I would like present my current project "ZED Online".
My vision is to build a good user interface for the Zod Engine, have great online multiplayer support (ranking, lobby, match-making etc.), fix some bugs in the Zod Engine, new level editor etc.

So far, I have worked on the user interface, ported the Zod Engine to SDL2, create a simple lobby server, fixed some bugs (and probably created a few ) and rewritten the keyboard&mouse input.
For those of you who are only interested in single player: Yes, single player is of course also supported.

I am posting this to ask you, the community, for feedback. What kind of changes would you like to see in the Zod Engine?
What kind of bugs need to be fixed? Are there any additional game modes/ideas you would like to see?

It looks impressive. Good job.
Noted// ======================================================[https://youtu.be/RKmKpTe-gVo]
Questionable work of a howitzer against a medium tank.
timing[9.55] Two shells hit the tank. The average survived. The howitzer has been destroyed.
The situation is unlikely.
Getting into a stationary tank, the chances of survival = 0.
Getting into a mobile tank, the chances of survival ~ (0.2-0.4).
timing[11.38] The average tank against howitzers. Again there were two hits. The tank survived.
This is wrong. It doesn't match the original.
(Expensive weapons don't make sense if they can't destroy a simple target.)
The howitzer attack must be increased. And we need to check the radius. I thought it was smaller than it should be (R hwz > R havy).

*** In my opinion the White color bad. Robots are like snowmen.// ======================================================[https://youtu.be/OnAJTml5znY]
timing[1.50-1.54] A Robot Factory produces one robot? What was that?

// ======================================================
General conmment: - you need to enable non-combat robot animations.
This is important for the gaming atmosphere. Example-see the ending of the game and the original.
What do your robots (Zod Engine robots) do after winning? Nothing. They stand still. What happens in the original game?
We see a show of happy robots! Spectacular imitation of emotions. You have fun, too. This is the work of game atmosphere.
Without it, any engine is just a skeleton.

[https://youtu.be/RKmKpTe-gVo]
Questionable work of a howitzer against a medium tank.
timing[9.55] Two shells hit the tank. The average survived. The howitzer has been destroyed.
The situation is unlikely.
Getting into a stationary tank, the chances of survival = 0.
Getting into a mobile tank, the chances of survival ~ (0.2-0.4).
timing[11.38] The average tank against howitzers. Again there were two hits. The tank survived.
This is wrong. It doesn't match the original.
(Expensive weapons don't make sense if they can't destroy a simple target.)
The howitzer attack must be increased. And we need to check the radius. I thought it was smaller than it should be (R hwz > R havy).

I will check how the damage is calculated, expect feedback on this issue in a few hours.

EDIT: The medium has 50/74 hit points. A bullet from the howitzer has a damage value of 10/24. So two hits would take our a medium tank since 20/24 > 50/74. However! This only applies if these were direct hits. In the video at 9:55 the first bullet hits the tank dead on taking more than half its health. The impact of the second bullet is unfortunately not shown in the video.
At 11.38 the first bullet almost missed the medium tank, hence the tank took only minor damage and could survive the second bullet barely.
I will watch a few videos of the DOS version. You are certainly right, the chances that a medium takes out a howitzer should be smaller I feel. I might either increase the damage of a howitzer bullet or increase the damage radius of the bullet.
This means I should also hurry up to get the replay feature done do analyse these situations more carefully

The robot factory produced two robots (toughs) they were however stacked (in the same position). After they exit the factory the will "split apart" after at most 1 second.
In the video I gave them immediately a command, so they remained stacked a bit longer. But, yeah, I see your point this should be improved. Noted as a bug.

General conmment: - you need to enable non-combat robot animations.
This is important for the gaming atmosphere. Example-see the ending of the game and the original.
What do your robots (Zod Engine robots) do after winning? Nothing. They stand still. What happens in the original game?
We see a show of happy robots! Spectacular imitation of emotions. You have fun, too. This is the work of game atmosphere.
Without it, any engine is just a skeleton.

So far you only hear the winning/losing voice samples. They will be played when your fort is destroyed or the last enemy is wiped out.
I was thinking of including a few of these voice samples every time when destroying a fort.
I have to check if these robots animations you mentioned are included in the "assets" folder of the Zod engine. If yes, then I would take me about a day to include these animation. If not, then I would need the graphics for that first.

I have to check if these robots animations you mentioned are included in the "assets" folder of the Zod engine. If yes, then I would take me about a day to include these animation. If not, then I would need the graphics for that first.

I have to check if these robots animations you mentioned are included in the "assets" folder of the Zod engine. If yes, then I would take me about a day to include these animation. If not, then I would need the graphics for that first.

In my Zod Engine does not include non-combat robot animations. Once there was presented the player of the game animations. It contains a complete list. There were Smoking robots, robots fishing, exercise, dancing, jumping for joy and so on.

I also couldn't find these animations. I have to ask FreakNigh how he extracted the other animations from the game. So far I couldn't reach him though.

Ahh thanks!! So the DAT and EXP files are just a bunch of bitmaps with an index and a weird palette!
Should be quite easy to port the extractor to C++ or write my own one. I am surprised the download links still work.

By the way, I have heard there is a Russian fan-translation of Z. Do you know if it is complete and how I could get the Russian sound files?

You have reported that the zod_map_converter is not working properly. Or am I confused? CZMapDoc Files.h, zed_unpack.h once upon a time I wrote (unboxing wrote Meeky). What's wrong?

CZMapDoc reads the files quite well, but only converts the tile data to the Zod map format. I extended it to convert zone, object, bridge, rock and starting unit data.
There are certain map item that I was unfortunately not able to convert yet. One in Level 4 and a lot of volcano in Level 5 - 8.
I bigger problem for me is that CZMapDoc does not have the starting position units for the multiplayer levels (for the red team).
Also there is a problem in Level 15. Some bridges have size 3x3 (width x height). Zod Engine however assumes a format of 3x4 + extra_links and extra_links is a unsigned integer this results in a minor graphical glitch when I convert the Level 15.
Eventually, I will have to re-convert all map files. Observe that also the zone information is wrong in all map files included in the Zod engine. Some zone are slightly shifted by 1 or 2 tiles.

CZMapDoc reads the files quite well, but only converts the tile data to the Zod map format. I extended it to convert zone, object, bridge, rock and starting unit data.
There are certain map item that I was unfortunately not able to convert yet. One in Level 4 and a lot of volcano in Level 5 - 8.
I bigger problem for me is that CZMapDoc does not have the starting position units for the multiplayer levels (for the red team).
Also there is a problem in Level 15. Some bridges have size 3x3 (width x height). Zod Engine however assumes a format of 3x4 + extra_links and extra_links is a unsigned integer this results in a minor graphical glitch when I convert the Level 15.
Eventually, I will have to re-convert all map files. Observe that also the zone information is wrong in all map files included in the Zod engine. Some zone are slightly shifted by 1 or 2 tiles.

This is only for loading maps and later editing. Not for play. To configure the commands used ZTools (see details viewtopic.php?f=12&t=448).
On the map, the Volcano has been non-standart tiles. If memory serves. In particular-a huge mountain in the middle of the map.

The white and black robots are very hard to see, they are just a blobs. Maybe change them to orange, grey, brown or pink.

orange might be to close to yellow (which is in my opinion already to close to red). I tried grey, but then everything looks neutral basically.
Brown and Pink seem reasonable. I will try some recoloring and then post a screenshot here and let the community decide what looks best, I think that's a good approach.